


Trust

by rebecca_selene



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21837547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebecca_selene/pseuds/rebecca_selene
Summary: Emily takes on even more responsibility than she thought when she becomes Chief of the London Interpol Office.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 4
Kudos: 92
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	Trust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sperrywink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sperrywink/gifts).

> written for [](https://sperrywink.dreamwidth.org/profile)[sperrywink](https://sperrywink.dreamwidth.org/) for [](https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fandomtrumpshate](https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/) 2019\. Apologies for all the cat hair and probable misuse of military time.

Emily tapped her pen against the glass tabletop. The clinking resounded in the otherwise empty room, and she winced. She put the pen down and made herself sit still.

As soon as the digital clock above the doorway switched from 14:59 to 15:00, someone knocked and opened the door.

Emily hurriedly stood, smoothing her jacket as the receptionist ushered in a dark-skinned woman with tightly curled hair held back at the nape of her neck. Emily smiled and stretched out her hand, quickly looking the woman up and down as she did so.

“Emily Prentiss. You must be Hermione Granger.” She nodded to the receptionist, who took the cue of dismissal and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Granger shook her hand. Her skin was warm, her grip firm. “Thank you for meeting with me, Chief Prentiss.”

Emily gestured to the chair across the table from her and retook her own seat. “I would have been happy to meet with you of my own accord, of course, but I’m afraid Clyde didn’t actually give me a choice.”

Granger folded her hands together on the desk, back straight, expression impassive. “The nature of this meeting is vital to the safety and well being of our communities. Your predecessors have all had this meeting either with me or my predecessors. I must warn you, what I’m about to tell you will be nearly impossible for you to believe. However, I can prove my claims, and know that your predecessors all took this information and our collaboration very seriously.”

Emily sat back, processing Granger’s immediate dive into business, what she had said, and how much she had so far left between the lines. “Communities?”

“You know my name already. Did Agent Easter tell you my title was Deputy Head?”

“Yes, though he didn’t say for which department.”

Granger nodded. “The Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

Emily raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know there was such a department.”

“It’s not part of Interpol. It’s also not part of England’s government. It’s a department in the Ministry of Magic here in London, hidden from the world of Muggles, which is what we call non-magic users.”

Emily suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “We?” she asked, wondering what Clyde had gotten her into. It wasn’t like him to pull a prank like this.

“Witches and wizards.”

Emily was silent for a beat, then decided it was easier to play along. “And what does your department have to do with Interpol?”

“I can see you don’t believe me, Chief Prentiss, and I understand. However, I did say I could prove it to you.” Granger pulled a thin piece of wood from her sleeve. Emily’s warning bells went off. Granger would have been checked for weapons, but wood wouldn’t have picked up on the scanner, and a pat down might not have revealed that thin stick under the folds of Granger’s suit.

Granger’s eyes flicked to Emily’s tensed shoulders and back to her face. “I won’t hurt you. Everything I’m about to do, I’ve done with your predecessor as well. Are you willing to be open minded?”

“Yes, but not so much that my brain falls out.”

A flash of what Emily took as amusement passed over Granger’s face before the impassiveness returned. Emily felt vaguely triumphant at the small victory of breaking through this woman’s shell. She let that feeling roll over her in an attempt to suppress the misgivings she had about having someone play magic tricks in front of her. Wasn’t leading the entire London office more important than whatever nonsense this was?

Granger set her small red purse next to the wooden stick, then slid it toward Emily. “Hold it,” she said. When Emily hesitated, she continued, “It won’t bite. I just want you to feel its size and weight.”

Emily took the purse and set it in her lap. “Seems like a normal bag.”

“It’s not. Open it. Just don’t flip it upside down. The story from the ‘70’s about the broken shark tank and near dismemberment still makes its way around the DMLE. ”

Emily obliged, wondering how the details of that story fit with this small bag. Her eyes widened at the pool of darkness visible in the bag’s interior.

She looked up at Granger, who nodded. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

“Did you just make a Doctor Who reference?”

Granger just replied, “There’s no shark in this one. Stick your arm in as far as it will go.”

“By rights my hand should barely fit inside, let alone my arm.” But Emily cautiously reached inside.

And reached.

And reached.

Until her shoulder was at the purse’s opening, and she still couldn’t feel the bottom of the bag. She looked under it, expecting to see her hand coming out the other side, but the bottom was whole.

She pulled her arm back out, heart hammering. “How?”

“An extension charm. I’ve placed some books in a side pocket. Rummage around to find them. There should be five.”

Still skeptical despite the evidence she’d seen with her own eyes, Emily reached back into the impossible bag and felt around. Sure enough, just as Granger had said, her fingers brushed against the hard spines of several books. She pulled them out one by one, laying them on the desk in front of her.

“This is impossible.” She stared at the stack of books that should never have been able to fit inside the tiny bag on her lap.

“You’ll find that many things are possible with magic.” Granger’s voice had gone soft.

“Why did someone have a shark tank in here?” Emily found herself oddly fixated on that piece of information, as if it would somehow help her make sense of the rest of it.

“A wizard accompanying the Deputy Head at the time turned out to be an opportunistic smuggler. He didn’t realize the Deputy Head would prove the existence of magic by asking to use his bag. It was fortuitous, really. The DMLE had been trying to find that smuggler for months, and it turned out he was right under their noses.”

The full story didn’t help Emily make sense of everything.

“We can wipe your memory if it’s too much for you.” Granger saw Emily’s expression and continued, “Don’t worry, we can make the spell specific enough not to erase any unrelated memories. You’ll still be you.”

“And you think that’s...ethical?” Emily asked slowly.

“No. But it does keep the wizarding community safe.”

And then Emily realized she was carrying on a conversation as if magic were real. Which of course it wasn’t. But the bag…

She set it back on the table gingerly. Granger didn’t say anything during the several minutes Emily stared at it, working through the evidence and possibilities. What if this magical world really did exist? “Why not just make yourselves known?” she finally asked. “If this is true, and I’m having trouble believing it is, wouldn’t both worlds benefit by being united?”

Granger raised an eyebrow. “Do you think everyone in the Muggle world is ready for magic?”

Well. She had her there. “No, actually.”

Granger nodded, seeming satisfied. “The impact would be catastrophic. Yes, there are benefits on both sides, but the dark and dangerous part of society would jump at the chance to destroy peace even more than they already do. We’ve had enough experience with that just in the wizarding world.” A shadow passed over Granger’s face, and Emily wondered what could have happened to haunt this young woman’s life already.

Emily nodded at Granger’s words, the problems unfolding in her mind the more she thought about it. Even though she didn’t know what, exactly, was possible with the magic Granger could use, she shuddered to think what people like Doyle could have done if they’d had access to it and law enforcement hadn’t. He’d been formidable enough as a...Muggle, as Granger had called them.

Granger continued, “That’s why we’re starting integration slowly and from the top. Those of us who straddle both worlds have seen laws and regulations struggle to keep up with rapidly growing technological trends. So we’re building relationships to make sure laws and regulations are in place before the wizarding world reveals itself to the Muggle world. The goal is to minimize ill reactions with structured policies for everyone to follow.” She smiled wryly. “As you can imagine, progress has been slow.”

Emily laughed humorlessly. “Yes, I can imagine it well, actually.”

Granger glanced at her watch. “Well, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. We both have departments to run. I’m sure you still have many questions, but those books will answer most of them.” She nodded toward the stack Emily had pulled from the purse, then picked up the wooden stick and held it upright. “But quickly, is there any type of magic you’d like to see?”

Emily blinked. “You’re going to...custom demonstrate?”

“Yes. Previous Deputy Heads have found it useful in establishing relationships to customize a brief demonstration to each Muggle’s personal interests. It makes that person more likely to feel positively toward us.”

“You’re very forthright about how you psychologically manipulate us.”

Granger shrugged. “Honesty gets me to my goal faster, I’ve found. I have no patience for beating around the bush, and our timeline is centuries long as it is.”

Emily thought about what she could ask for that could further prove magic existed, which her brain still struggled to accept. Granger waited expectantly. “I’m guessing you can’t make me rich or something, like Aladdin’s Genie? Or make me live forever?”

Granger had started to smile at the beginning of Emily’s question, but it disappeared by the end. “Many people have died during the wars fought on account of just one wizard’s quest for immortality. I wouldn’t pursue that line of inquiry, if I were you.”

The darkness Emily had seen flash over Granger’s eyes earlier was back and audible in her voice as well. She wanted to know more about these wars, the spells possible, but she figured the books would help with those questions. Most of all, at that moment, she wanted to see Granger’s smile come to full bloom. “Okay,” she said, switching tactics. “I want…a cupcake. Double chocolate with a raspberry filling, peanut butter frosting, and a single twisted pretzel piece on top, not a stick.” She thought the more detailed and wild her request, the less likely Granger had just such a cupcake hidden in her back pocket—or her impossible purse—to trick Emily into believing she’d conjured it out of thin air.

To Emily’s delight, the smirk returned. “Do you have a piece of gum? Or something similar?”

Emily fished around in her pockets and pulled out a wrapped mint. “Why? Will this do?”

Granger took the mint and placed in at the center of the table. “Yes. It’ll be easier to transfigure it into your cupcake, since there aren’t any ingredients around to magic them into the right recipe. Now watch closely.”

Emily filed away Granger’s explanation to mull over later. She leaned down toward the innocuous-looking mint, not even daring to blink.

Granger said a few words in Latin Emily didn’t catch, waved her wand, and then in a moment the mint was gone. In its place sat a cupcake, exactly to Emily’s specifications. She could even smell the peanut butter frosting.

Eyes wide, Emily slowly reached out a finger. When it made contact with the soft cupcake, she retracted her hand as if she’d been burned. Granger laughed, the sound cutting through Emily’s shock. “It’s real. You can even eat it.”

Emily looked up. Granger’s smile seemed just as magically conjured—no, transfigured—as the confection. “It won’t turn back into a mint?”

“Not unless I transfigure it again.”

Emily leaned against the back of her chair, her mind racing. She forced herself to slow down her thoughts so she could function.

“It will take some time to adjust to what you’ve learned today. Do you have any other questions for me before I go?” Granger asked.

Emily’s looked at Granger’s hand, then her suit, before meeting her eyes. “What’s your cat’s name?”

Granger blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You have an orange cat. There are hairs on your jacket and pants. Er, trousers.”

Granger blinked again. “You can’t even see my trousers.”

“I did when you walked in.”

Granger’s lips quirked. “His name is Crookshanks. ” Emily could see the question on Granger’s lips and waited. The curiosity won. “What else can you tell about my life?”

“You wear no wedding or engagement ring but the skin where one would be is paler.” Granger placed her hands in her lap under the table. “If your significant other was dead, you’d still be wearing it. So I’d guess divorced.” Granger’s eyebrows rose, but she said nothing.

Emily smirked, feeling more in control. “It may not be as shiny, but I have my own magic.”

Granger leaned back in her chair, her expression far more assessing than it had been during the entire meeting. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I’m beginning to see that. So you concluded both of those things, maybe even more, but you asked about my cat first. Do you have one of your own, is that why?”

Emily’s pulse sped at the realization that Granger was mirroring her own deduction strategy. She always did like a fast learner. “Yes. His name is Sergio.”

Granger smiled, and Emily suspected the glint in her eyes was triumph. “So you noted the lack of a ring but still decided to prioritize the cat question. Perhaps out of personal interest in cats more than relationships? Are you single?”

Emily inclined her head. “Very good.” They shared a smile.

The clock beeped. Emily saw that their time was formally over. She cleared her throat. “I see no reason to delay furthering liaisons between our departments, given your already lengthy timeline. So,” she said casually, standing and gathering the books into her arms. “Dinner? 1900 hours tonight? There’s an excellent Thai restaurant around the corner.”

“Your place, I think. I’d like to meet...Sergio.” Granger’s smile was warm and genuine.

Emily’s heart skipped a beat. She tore off a scrap of blank paper from her notepad, wrote down her address, and handed it to Granger. “Don’t be late.”

“A witch is never late, Emily Prentiss. She arrives precisely when she means to.”

Emily recognized the quote from The Lord of the Rings, spoken by its resident wizard, and laughed. She headed for the door, books heavy in her arms. “I believe we will continue building a very successful partnership, Deputy Head Granger.”

Granger stood. “Don’t forget your cupcake. It’s not poisoned. That’s not useful for strengthening bonds.”

Emily took the cupcake from Granger’s outstretched hand.

“And outside of these walls, I’m Hermione.”

Emily nodded to her, warmth suffusing her body, and left the room. As much as her world had turned upside down over the past few minutes with the existence of actual, real magic, she’d taken special delight in unwrapping Hermione Granger over the course of that meeting and couldn’t wait to continue.

***

Emily’s doorbell rang at 1901 hours. Granger’s—Hermione’s—cheeky grin made it clear the minute tardiness was her way of arriving precisely when she meant to. Between that impishness and Hermione’s bright red sweater with a motif of yarn balls along the hem, Emily was willing to play along.

“Come in,” Emily said, stepping aside and waving Hermione into the short entryway. “Kitchen and living area are to the right. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Red wine?” Hermione scanned her surroundings as she made her way into the living room, and Emily thought she was making a show of assessing the flat until she fixed on the ball of fur on top of the couch.

“So this is Sergio.” Hermione went around to the front of the couch and sat down. She held up her fingers for Sergio to smell. “Hi. I’m Hermione.”

Emily’s heart melted a little as her cat sniffed Hermione’s fingers and started purring loudly. Hermione giggled and scratched Sergio behind the ears.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were more interested in meeting my cat than actually having dinner with me,” Emily teased as she moved into the open kitchen area to pour a couple glasses of wine.

“Oh? And what makes you think you know better?”

“Magic.”

Hermione laughed. She came into the kitchen and accepted a glass from Emily. “I can’t say meeting Sergio wasn’t my primary goal tonight, but after smelling whatever you’ve cooked, my priorities have shifted. What is it?”

“Thai takeaway. I wasn’t lying that it’s an excellent restaurant.” Emily placed her glass on the dining room table and busied herself in the kitchen. “Have a seat. I’ll serve you up.”

Hermione sat, and after a minute, Emily placed two steaming plates on the table. “Coconut curry tofu. I went vegetarian and not spicy, just in case.”

“Mmm.” Hermione closed her eyes and breathed in the aroma. “Meat and spice are fine, for future reference, but this smells heavenly.”

Emily tucked away the promise of _future reference_ as she sat across from her. “Well, it’s not going to eat itself.”

“How do I know you haven’t poisoned it?” Hermione asked cheekily.

“You don’t have a spell for that?”

“It’s magic, not a mobile device. There might be an app for everything, but not a spell.”

Emily laughed. “Fair enough.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Emily’s lips quirked as she raised her own glass and took a sip. “No, I haven’t poisoned it. Bad for building relationships.”

“Hmm. And now I have to wonder if the Veritaserum I put in your wine has had a chance to take effect yet.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “Verita—” She worked through the word. “A truth potion?”

“Very good. You’re a quick study.”

Emily shrugged. “Polyglot. I have a gift of the tongue.”

Hermione threw her head back and laughed. When she straightened her head again, her shoulders sat as if they’d had a weight taken off them Emily hadn’t even noticed.

“There wasn’t really a potion in my wine, was there?”

“No,” Hermione replied, still chuckling. “Try speaking a lie. If you’d had Veritaserum, there’d be a block preventing you from telling an untruth. It would be impossible.”

“I have a dog.” Emily’s slight frown disappeared. “Brilliant. No poison, no forced truths. Let’s tuck in before it gets cold.”

“No forced anythings,” Hermione said after her first bite. “It’s not how we work. At least, not how we try to work.”

Emily nodded. “It’s the same with Interpol. Or any law enforcement agency I’ve worked for. We just use different tools than you probably do.”

“Yes. And when people, like Muggles, don’t understand how a tool works, things can go horribly wrong. And your brand of magic”—Hermione smiled at Emily—“is nothing we’ve ever used before. It can be mutually beneficial to share strategies, but it could also lead so easily to backstabbing.” Hermione sighed. “That’s why it’s so important to build trusting relationships between the people in charge.”

“And that’s why you agreed to meet me for dinner tonight?” Emily asked.

“Yes. Partly. Mostly for Sergio.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Emily raised her wine glass. “To cats, and the trusting relationships they foster.”

Hermione clinked her own glass to Emily’s, smile wide. “To trust.”


End file.
